


An Offering to Hestia

by ChristinaK



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristinaK/pseuds/ChristinaK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forty-eight ships. 47,497 people. Six hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two individual name search requests. And the lists are almost done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Offering to Hestia

**Author's Note:**

> Muchas gracias to Perri for the edit, and to Val & Celli for comments. Spoilers through about "Water" (1.3).
> 
> Standard Disclaimers: if they were mine, there would probably be more wormholes. No warnings except for the end of the world and attendant depression.

Forty-eight ships. 47,497 people. Six hundred and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two individual name search requests. And the lists are almost done.

When it’s all over, when the final list of survivors is compiled and distributed, Cynthia swears she’s going to crawl into her berth, say a prayer to Morpheus for lack of dreams, and pull the covers over her head. Can’t be soon enough. It’s only seven days after the end of everything, five of them spent in total panic, and the queries and lists are still coming in. _My wife, my kids, my husband, my lover, my parents, my friends, my coworkers, that guy who used to make my coffee-- Galactica, can you run a search, tell me if they made it?_

So far there’s only been about three hundred matches; it hits her like a hammer, joy and pain, every time. Cally and her guys are setting up a still, Chief Tyrol is messing around with Boomer, Dee’s already dating the President’s aide, Peter’s hoarding chocolate. Meanwhile Cynthia is hijacking other people’s happiness through the wonder of radio waves and illicit channel-tapping. 

“—can’t believe you’re alive, Gala, gods, I’m so happy to hear your voice…” A passenger on the _Lady Diane_ , whose sister had taken a surprise shuttle out to visit him on Libran. He’s nearly in tears, and his sister is all incoherent hiccups and laughter. Cynthia holds her breath so they won’t know she’s still on the line.

“We’ll have you transferred over to the _Helios_ as soon as we can, I swear. We’ll all be together, all of us that are left....”

“It’s okay, Grandfather. We’re okay, Jenna is here with me, and Lia, you haven’t even seen her yet— she’s gotten so big, you won’t believe it….” 

She hugs herself, imagining that her long-gone grandmother is still there, and for once, just this once, she’s glad Nana died in her sleep years ago. She hated to travel, wouldn't have know what to do with herself in this post-everything world. She’d never have survived 297 jumps in five days, Cynthia tells herself.

“Are you sure? Your mother, maybe she was on another ship—“

“I’m sorry, Aunt Tatya. I’m so, so sorry….”

“Don’t. It isn’t… At least you’re still here. At least someone I love is left….” And Cynthia gets off the channel, because she won’t steal anyone’s grief if she can help it.

This is her reward. This is her payoff for sifting through the names, the requests. For finding a match, making the call.

“ _Grey Eyes_ , this is the _Galactica_. Could you please contact Ms. Stephanie Isaga? We’ve found a friend of hers, she’s on the _Rising Star_.” 

“Thank you, _Galactica_ , we’re happy to hear that. Hold the line while we track her down.”

During the infinite jumps— over and over and over and over— she and Dee and Eric traded off the comms. She’d gotten so punch drunk at one point that words stopped making sense, coordinates failed to register in order, and when she couldn’t tell how many ships were left, she had to snag her thumb on edge of the dradis casing, make it bleed, let the pain bring her back from the edge. She’d felt trapped underwater, everything thick and far away without any idea where the surface was. Recite coordinates. Count ships. Lather, rinse, repeat; could’ve been doing it for years, for decades. She’d always been doing it. Cynthia had tried to think of something to look forward to, after (please lords, let there be an after) the nightmare of constant hyperspace was over. 

She wanted her mother. She’d said as much to Dee at one point, she’s pretty sure. There was a crying jag followed by a drunken binge right after the Cylons lost track of them, and she thinks she remembers sobbing all over Dualla and Peter right about then. It’s still a blur, her crying for her mom, Peter crying for his girlfriend, Dee crying for everyone, the three of them collapsed in a sodden pile on the Obs deck, late on third shift. 

She’s made an effort not to think about anything or anyone connected to Scorpia since. The last of the Scorpian cactus wine that she’d smuggled on board was gone; it was easier, with nothing else left to remind her.

Off-shift, she laboriously ran the search engine, while Peter organized the lists and input the newest information, and Marcus dealt with personnel calling or walking in. She didn’t envy him that. But at least he didn’t have her sick feeling of failure, of running a hundred searches in an hour and finding nothing, no one, not one match. 

“It’s so good to hear your voice. I can’t believe you made it.”

“I should’ve called years ago, but now… to talk to you, after all that’s happened….”

“I’m should’ve apologized, we’d still be together if I’d—“

“Shhh. Don’t. Don’t, it’s… it was my fault too. Maybe, you think we can… I don’t know, start over?”

She has studied the frozen faces lining the hallway on her breaks, when she’s had to walk away from the console because her eyes have started to cross. Wondered how they can all be gone. She knows it’s true, but she doesn’t believe it. There are too many, as if all that loss were invented, because how could there be so many people who’d just disappeared? She’s taken down some, fiercely glad to return the photos to their owners, along with a comms channel and a time they can call. Twenty-six total. She eavesdropped on five of those calls. Got to sleep with other people’s relief ringing in her ears.

“Lieutenant.”

Cynthia looks up from the comms to see Colonel Tigh grimacing at her. Tight-ass, Peter calls him, and she mentally curses him once again for giving her that image to try and erase whenever she’s faced with the XO. He’s not the one that sees Tigh every day, damnit. “Sir?”

“Is there any reason why you’re monitoring ship-to-ship calls when you’re off-shift?”

Oh, Lady. She wonders who told; not Dee, not Peter, but someone must have noticed her little habit and dropped a hint to Tigh. Mute and turning scarlet, she shakes her head.

“Lieutenant, I want an answer.” The Colonel’s face is granite, uncompromising, and she resigns herself to the brig for the foreseeable future.

She swallows, hard. “No, sir. I was just… No, sir. I have no reason to monitor ship-to-ship calls.”

Tigh stares at her, hard, trying to bore through her head with his eyes, then grunts. “Personally, I think a little monitoring wouldn’t go amiss, security concerns being what they are. But I’ve been informed that’s not the way we do things for private citizens. Not without cause. Am I making myself clear, Lieutenant?”

“Crystal, sir.” And that tightening in her throat, that’s not loss. It’s just embarrassment. Really.

”Good. I believe the last of the refugee lists have been received?”

“We just got the last one an hour ago, sir, before I came on-shift.” She takes a deep breath. “Lieutenant Quentin said that we’d be able to distribute the organized lists by twenty-two hundred.”

“Glad to hear it.” He turns away, then turns back briefly. “You’ve done a good job on those, Rhys. A lot of people have reason to be grateful to you and Lieutenants Quentin and Malvado. It’s been noted.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He leaves her station without saying anything more, and she curls her fingers under the desk, digging her fingernails into her palms. 

She’d counted, when Peter said they had the final names: four hundred and eight-four matches, among 47,497 people. Maybe there will be more, after the lists are distributed. Maybe passing acquaintances will contact each other, after they see their names. It kills her that she won’t know.

She goes to the chapel, and sits there for an hour afterward, trying to pray. The only words that come to her are from the first prayer she ever learned: _Hestia guard us, Hestia keep us, Hestia hold us in your hands. Hestia bless us, Hestia hear us, Hestia guide us in the night lands._

**Author's Note:**

> Part of "The Common People" challenge for BSG and SG-A, enacted in 2005 on livejournal. Previously published then on mine.


End file.
